A type of connector used to connect a single optical fiber cable (optical cable) with a plug-outlet attached to an external terminal box door, with multiple doors, installed on an aerial or underground fashion, being the optical fibers of a network to be accessed by different users by means of the referred optical cables comprising a single optical fiber connected to the referred plug-outlets, is well-known in the art.
In the concerned type of external application, the terminal box plug-outlets and the individual cable connectors must be designed to support stringent temperature, humidity conditions, exposure to chemical agents and other adverse operational conditionals, generally present in an external installation, exposed to bad weather conditions.
The connectors are usual and previously attached to the end of a respective access optical cable, generally by using specific tools, so as to allow the respective optical fiber to be connected to one of the network optical fibers, by simply fitting the connector to a terminal box plug-outlet.
A known type of connector is described in patent application BR 10 2014 016480 4, by the same applicant, comprising: an inner, tubular, body, having a rear end, anchoring an optical cable end, and a front end to which a connecting latch is coupled to a terminal box plug-outlet; a tubular housing involving and locking the inner body; an anchoring means defined by a crimping tube, intended to anchor the optical cable cover and traction elements to the inner body.
In this type of connector, the crimping tube involves an extension of the traction elements arranged over one part of the inner body, to be crimped, in at least to regions axially distant between each other and, along with the confronting portion of the traction elements, to the interior of an external circumferential recess of the inner body and to enter the external cover of the optical cable, anchoring both the cover and the traction elements to the connector's inner body.
The connector described above requires the provision of the crimping tube and, consequently, of specific tools to perform the referred crimping operation, making the assembly of such connector to the end of an optical cable in the field difficult and even unfeasible.
In addition to the limitation mentioned above and related to the requirement for assembly tools installed at specific places, such known connector also requires the provision of equipment in order to guarantee the correct introduction of the bare optical fiber, protruding from the end of the tube cover, inside the tubular inner body and further fitting and locking the bare optical fiber inside the connector latch, preventing eventual transmission continuity solutions between the optical fiber and the latch and, further, risks of damages in the operation of assembling the optical fiber in the connector.
Another construction known and referring to a connector for optical fiber cable is described in document WO2013/129485. In this second construction, the connector also comprises an internal, tubular body, having a front end to which a connecting latch is coupled to a plug-outlet of a terminal box and a back end to which a clamp provided with inner teeth and designed to receive and lock the end of a single optical fiber cable cover, “low friction” type, to be adapted to the connector, is inserted and locked. Finishing and external closing elements are usually provided around the connector's inner body.
In these field connectors, the inner body is provided with means to direct the bare optical fiber extension, protruding from the end of the cable cover, to its subsequent insertion and locking inside the connector's latch, being such operation conducted on a manual basis by the operator without requiring special tools. The inner body further presents an inspection window allowing the operator to follow the oriented movement of the bare optical fiber inside the inner body, towards the interior part of the latch, upon insertion and locking the clamp inside the back end of the inner body.
In this previous construction, the fiber cover, defined by the acrylate coating, (protective cover of the individual optical fiber) is arranged over the interior of the inner body without locking with respect to the latest, being the only locking between the optical cable and the inner body conducted by locking the cable cover into the clamp and by locking the latest inside the back end of the connector's inner body. In this construction, the set defined by the bare optical fiber and by its fiber cover (acrylate coating) is only oriented inside the inner body, even after the bare optical fiber has been inserted and locked into the latch. It must be noted that in this type of “low friction” cable, the pair of traction cables is cut in the end of the cable cover, being that such traction cables do not have any function in locking the optical cable to the connector.
In this second connector of the previous art, no traction cable locking is expected with respect to the connector's inner body, being evident that its project is exclusively intended for the assembly in “low friction” type cables submitted to relatively reduced tensile strengths, allowing the connector's optical cable locking to be exclusively guaranteed by locking the cable cover in the clamp's internal teeth, without locking the traction cables to the connector's body.
Thus, in this known solution of connector for “low friction” optical cable, the locking of the cable cover exclusively depends, before sealing the final connector, on the efficiency of the clamp's internal teeth locking capacity in the cable cover.
Although the second construction described in document WO2013/129485 allows assembling the connector in the “low friction” optical cable end in the field, without using special tools, it has an inconvenience of having the clamp's internal teeth exclusively provided in the inner sides of the latest and presenting, each one, an isosceles triangle cross-section, unable to increase its locking capacity in the cable cover, when the optical cable is submitted to tensile strength in the sense of removing it from the connector. The locking degree obtained by such teeth decreases its efficiency in the axial locking of the single optical fiber's “low friction” optical cable, limiting its use to installations on which the cable is submitted to relatively reduced tensile strengths.